


Seven Circles

by Wrennydennydoo



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, Flashbacks, I wrote it and I don't know what's going on, It's ok if you don't know what's going on, M/M, always a slut for taking down unfair capitalist dictatorships, open-ended, the tenth doctor needs life advice, to be continued... maybe, yasmin khan is briefly a badass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 04:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16695562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrennydennydoo/pseuds/Wrennydennydoo
Summary: Seven pieces of a puzzle. Jack and the Doctor always end up right where they started.





	Seven Circles

i.   The ceiling is the same color white as always. The water the same clear. He washes his hands, puts on the uniform, and leaves the cubicle he lives in. 

 

The hallways between living quarters and shopping quarters are near empty. It isn’t quite so busy these days, and unemployment is rising again. The passport checks have become more rigorous. Usually there are at least a few people bustling around looking for last minute Christmas gifts, but all the hallways are clearing out. It makes his job easier, what with people more afraid to test their luck. He wishes it weren’t easy. He spends as little time searching for falsehoods as he can. Keeps his eyes on his feet.

 

_ When he sleeps he can see it. The kind of bright room that makes you want to stare harder. The kind of smile that makes you want to smile back. The kind of face that makes you think twice about kissing it, yet he still wants to. They are quite the pair.  _

 

He’s on scanning duty today. He checks the rotation roster, sees if he can cover for someone else, but he isn’t invincible right now and the manager lays him low. Nowadays, it isn’t hard to cut Jack Harkness down to size. Not “captain”; hasn’t been “captain” in a long time. Was never really his to be called. Sometimes, he remembers trying to con time agents into buying his fake relics of war, and wants to steal expensive bars of chocolate from displays to give away to his coworkers. But then they’d give  _ him _ away. Nowadays, there’s no black market except for the government. Or maybe he just hasn’t met the right people, this time around. It used to be so easy. 

 

There’s a light-skinned woman with an old-earth accent ~~(very familiar, Britain circa 1400-2500)~~ talking about last-minute shopping to someone in a different line. The scanner beeps positive on her identity. The piece of paper she holds up is blank. 

 

~~ (psychic paper. he hasn’t seen that in a long, long time) ~~

 

He doesn’t look too closely. He’s borrowed enough time.  

 

 

ii. His _ name is Alonso. He’s an interesting guy, being the survivor of a cruise ship crash. Jack might actually like him, a little bit. Reminds him of Ianto.  _

 

_ Jack can’t even be mad that the Doctor’s goodbye present to him is a hookup. He figured it would be, one way or another, and this is just more roundabout than his past self expected. It’s a little sad that he associates sex with goodbyes, but Jack likes to think that it’s less him and more the company he keeps.  _

 

_ They’re fooling no one. The Doctor’s so repressed it would take two ice ages for him to directly admit he cares about his friends, and Jack hasn’t really made any efforts to get him to open up. Martha hasn’t been as good for him as Jack had hoped-- or maybe the Doctor isn’t good for Martha. The TARDIS is very chilly, this time round, and Jack wasn’t supposed to be there, not really. He never received an invitation the first time, only a favor. That’s what this is, in reality; repayment.  _

 

_ He wonders why the Doctor would even show his face, afterwards. The only trouble here is Jack.  _

 

“For the umpteenth time, Yaz, I don’t look for trouble,” She whispers, keeping Yaz behind her with their backs to the wall. “It just kinda…” 

 

“Finds you?” Yaz fills in. The Doctor reaches backwards to pat her cheek. 

 

“Exactly. Now shush.” 

 

She’s extremely grateful Graham and Ryan chose to sit this one out. As much as she loves their company, they don’t quite know when to be quiet, and what was supposed to be some last-minute shopping has turned into being involved in a revolt against Corporate Third America. Not that she minds, exactly. She’s always a slut for taking down unfair capitalist dictatorships, as much as she tries to avoid interfering in history. But she promised Yaz this would be a peaceful afternoon out.

 

She’s not sure that Yaz minds too much. After all, they did manage lunch and a bit of window shopping before the whole trouble dealio. So mostly-peaceful afternoon out? Other than the guards/soldiers that don’t want non-citizens in their shopping mall. 

 

(shopping mall? no, not quite right. this place is too big to be a shopping mall) 

 

“Let’s move,” She whispers as the lights flicker round a corner, and fade. 

 

 

iii. This _ is when he still has the big ears and the military haircut, when it is easy (or not) to be warm inside. The TARDIS is metallic behind them, where Rose sits on the console with Jack leaning beside her.  _

 

_ “So what happens when you’ve run out of numbers and roman numerals? You gonna move on to colors?” She asks. Jack tosses popcorn into his mouth.  _

 

_ The Doctor shrugs. “I dunno. Never thought about it. Maybe I’ll do foods next,” he says. “Or a combination. How about plan biscuit? Plan blue biscuit.”  _

 

_ “Plan popcorn,” Jack suggests. He aims a handful playfully at the Doctor, and there’s a satisfied crunch a second later. It’s good he hasn’t missed yet; cleaning popcorn out of the rotors on the lower floor would be a pain.  _

 

_ Rose snorts at them. “What would those plans be, then?”  _

 

_ “Well, blue biscuit should involve the TARDIS,” Jack says. “For popcorn, I’m thinking…”  _

 

_ “Something poppy,” The Doctor says, and wiggles his eyebrows.  _

 

An eternity-or-maybe-not away, she can taste metal in her mouth from when she licked the wall (willingly). She wishes she hadn’t, honestly, the metal imported from Theoli’s fifth moon tastes awful. All industrial and dusty. There’s other dirt in her mouth too, from when she tripped (unwillingly) on the launch rails earlier. She can see the platform and its edge ahead of her, and her target. 

 

Quick calculations tell her she’s not going to catch the pod before it catapults to the other end of the warehouse (a warehouse! not a shopping center, a warehouse, one the size of a small european country). Resources available rule out short range teleport, transport pods, fork lifts, and stopping the pod in front of her via explosion and/or derailment. 

 

Behind her, Yaz shouts an alarmed “DOCTOR!” And someone on the launch platform is firing on them. Ew. Then something grabs her around the middle, and her first instinct is to bite the arm holding her-- but that’s Yaz’s watch. She’s surprised every day by the tenacity and ingenuity of human beings.

 

“Yaz what the hell!” She says, trying to look upwards while seemingly swinging on some tenuous line above people with laser guns. And then, “When’d you pick up a grappling hook?” 

 

Yaz doesn’t answer, which is perfectly valid. Trying to use a grappling hook while being fired upon and holding another person is difficult even when said person isn’t squirming. And Yaz lets go-- she has to, eventually, but the Doctor wasn’t expecting it this soon. She wasn’t expecting her landing, either, and immediately discovers that it’s harder to hold onto a spherical transport pod going than it is to wrestle Aaron Burr into a political stance. She has a feeling that she looks way less graceful now than she did in 1800’s America. At least she’s not in those obnoxiously uncomfortable tights and those clunky heels. Heels would be a real pain right now. 

 

Yaz thuds down next to her, and starts sliding; the Doctor almost misses catching her hand. They’ve become a humanoid chain hanging from a slippery handhold.

 

“I got ya!” She shouts. Yaz’s eyes are clenched shut. She gets the feeling that Yaz might be screaming right now if they weren’t going so fast. She’d try and get them both inside the pod, but fast moving speeds prevent her from reaching the sonic. Besides, both her hands are occupied. 

 

(can’tletgocan’tletgocan’tletgocan’tletgo) 

 

iv. It’s _ as painful as holding on, letting go is. He can’t let go, can’t let go, can’tletgocan’tletgocan’tletgo. If he does she’s gone.  _

 

_ He already let one go in the presence of a void. To let another would be far too many.  _

 

Yaz isn’t slipping, she isn’t. 

 

Well, maybe she is. Just a teeny bit. But they don’t have that much further to go, maybe two minutes? Three? They can hold on for a little longer. And Yaz’s other hand is free. They have options. Two minutes is a shorter time than she thinks. 

 

“Yaz! Other hand! Screwdriver! In my fanny pack!” The Doctor yells. Yaz yells something back. It doesn’t sound like a positive statement, but the Doctor is okay with that, because Yaz is reaching for the screwdriver. She has it… and then the pod jerks to a stop, and both of its unfortunate passengers have to deal with gravity acting upon them in completely expected and yet still unforeseen events. 

 

So maybe it  _ was _ less than two minutes. Time is an illusion anyways. 

 

Yaz, with the screwdriver, skids onto the landing platform and into the mass of armed people waiting to apprehend them. The Doctor, either more or less fortunately depending on how much the reader likes armed and violent men, shoots past the suspended pod rails and down two floors, two hundred feet in the other direction. 

 

_ geronimo, _ The Doctor thinks dizzily, before she realizes that the jumping part of this ordeal has already happened, and that her foot feels fractured or broken in at least two places. She’d be more worried about that bit if she couldn’t hear the soldiers trying to figure out where she ended up. 

 

Yaz is, at least for now, lost. The swiss army sonic is with Yaz, the TARDIS is far enough away that it isn’t a resource, and her foot is broken (no time to make a cast, it’ll be healed enough to run in thirty minutes-- so buying time). She needs to buy time. She can do that. 

 

 

v. _Donna_ _ is the best at giving advice.  _

 

_ He feels like his previous bodies hadn’t been as closed off as this one-- and there he goes, comparing himself to himself. Donna says that that is unhealthy, and that it keeps him from living his best life.  _

 

_ “It brews self-loathing,” She says, sipping a mimosa and leaning back in the beach chair. It’s the seasonal equivalent of January, and the violet dunes are gorgeous in the desert. He can’t really remember which desert, but they’re on vacation so he doesn’t need to. “If all people, all humanoids, were to think of ourselves as not as good as we used to be, we’d never get anywhere in life. The past is dictated by different circumstances than the now. We must allow ourselves to accept our different circumstances, and be our different selves.”  _

 

_ He stares at her face for a second. She stares right back. “When did your bits of wisdom start to make sense?” He murmurs, taking his sunglasses off and rubbing his eyes. He doesn’t need them, because it’s night-time right now. It just adds to the beach vibe they’ve got going (the sunglasses, not the dark).  _

 

_ “When did you start listening?” She replies, drawing her wool hat further down her ears. He laughs, bitter and joyous and like a record. “I’m trying a new philosophy. How can I evolve to be myself if I’m trying to live in the past?” _

 

_ He whistles in agreement, and wishes the past were really so far away.  _

 

This warehouse is  _ really unfortunately _ heavily guarded. Of course it would be; Corporate Third America protects its investments. She’s been running for ten minutes and can still hear the soldiers crackling away behind her. Excellent stamina training, them, but a tiny bit inconvenient. Exploding the transport pod hadn’t been her best distraction ever, either. She really could have done better; next time she’s going with setting department stores on fire. 

 

But somewhere in this building, there’s someone who would (probably) help her take down a government, and if she runs fast enough she just might find him. She’s been getting closer to him recently. She can feel him as her eardrums vibrate from the sonic grenades behind her, and veers left.

 

(wow. real mature, exploding the hallway of a shopping center to stop an intruder. great government. obviously _ real concerned _ about its citizens.)

 

She can  _ see him _ , and they’re so close. 

 

“Oi! Jack the Fact!” She yells. And then trips on her face into her target, (dear great gallifrey why is this body so damn  _ clumsy) _ , and then they’re on her, and things are more complicated. 

 

 

vi. _Martha_ _ is staring at him like he has a third head (which he might. He hasn’t checked recently.) _

 

_ “He was your friend, and you left him behind?” She echoes. Echoes because he thinks the exact same thing every time he remembers Rose. “Without telling him or waiting for him, you left him.”  _

 

_ yes, he wants to say. I was dying and he felt  _ wrong _ and she needed to get home so she wouldn’t be stranded if I ended and he felt  _ wrong, humans aren’t supposed to be fixed points in time _. But these are excuses, and he doesn’t say them. Humans aren’t supposed to borrow time. _

 

_ In his head, Rose asks, “Why not? I did.”  _

 

It’s the British accent again. The psychic paper woman that he didn’t see earlier. Only one person ever called him Jack the Fact. They end up sprawled on the floor. They always end up here, somehow. Even when Jack’s living on borrowed immortality. 

 

“GogogogoGO!” The Doctor shouts and they’re both running, and he lets out a whoop of joy. 

 

 

vii. _Sometimes_ _ Jack wonders about Rose and The Doctor.  _

 

_ “There’s room for all three of us, you know,” she says. She’s talking about him, thinking about leaving this, because sometimes he can feel resentment coming from… somewhere. It seeps into the bend at his elbows and neck and knees. If Jack is good at anything, as a conman, it’s reading people. And someone doesn’t want him here. This place in-between nowhere he’s ever been and everywhere he might ever go is already full.  _

 

_ “Is there?” He says later to himself, alone in the TARDIS kitchen.  _

 

_ “Yes,” The Doctor yells from the console room. “I take my tea black.”  _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
